


matchmaker matchmaker make me a match

by jonphaedrus



Series: What Does M.T. Stand For Anyway? [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Chatlogs, F/F, Matchmaker Ardyn, Sitcom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-09-18 02:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9361811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: Ardyn Izunia is really, really good at hooking people up. Really good. Scarily good. Terrifyingly good. It's like he's got a magic eight ball, and he can shake it and look into it and go, aha, here are my two single friends, and bam! They're dating. Forever.





	1. hungolomghnonoloughongous

“Um,” Ardyn’s office was a mess. Papers were everywhere, there were four bean bags stacked up in different corners, at least a dozen scarves were hung here and there, and his computer proudly displayed a background of a giant orange persian covered in what looked like raspberry jam looking balefully into the camera lens as if asking to be freed from his flesh-and-fur prison. The man in question was currently sprawled leaning almost all the way backwards in his desk chair, feet up on the table, pen stuck in his mouth, busily doing a crossword puzzle. Which wasn’t work, but. Whatever. “We got an order from out of town.”

Aranea had been working for him for about nine months, and she still wasn’t sure to make of the guy. She’d spent the first two thinking he was flirting with her, but had found out he was about as straight as a funyun: that was to say, _not_. And she still barely could understand where he was coming from most of the time. But he was a god boss, and nice enough. That didn’t mean she wasn’t still nervous around him, sometimes.

“From who?” He didn’t look up as he said it, counting the squares in the puzzle with his fingertip. “And how far?”

“Cid Sophiar at Hammerhead Garage, out in Leide.” Ardyn perked up and lowered his crossword.

“Well, it’s been months! It’s about time, I thought he’d finally decided to stay in Altissia.” The man waved a hand. “We do orders for him, he’s a family friend. He won’t come in to Insomnia to pick it up, though, so you’ll have to drive it out there.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Can you drive?” Ardyn was chewing on his pen cap again. It was the same maroon as his hair.

“Yes?” For a moment her boss fished in the pocket of his coat, today a black nylon stretchy affair that she was certain came off of the women’s rack and practically floated in the right breeze. He’d paired it with a chartreuse snood and a chocolate brown v-neck cut down below his collarbones onto his sternum, revealing an old messy impact scar dark on his pale skin. The combined effect brought out the amber of his eyes. He found what he was looking for, and tossed her his keys without looking, Aranea struggling to catch them.

“Take my automobile. She’s a dear old thing, you know, and it’s past time she went out and had a checkup. I’m sure Cid will be happy to see her. I’ll pay for gas, and don’t you worry about hurrying back here. Take your time out there!” He rolled to his feet and flipped his hair—it was getting long, he’d not cut it since he’d hired her, and the curls were spilling out loose over his shoulders. “I suppose I can deign to man the storefront myself. Six know I’m not getting anything done back here.”

Aranea just kind of stared at him. But, if nothing else in the last year, she’d learned better than to question pretty much anything the man said or did, and just pocketed the keys.

“Sure,” she settled on at last. “I’ll go deliver.”

 

 

Ardyn’s car was an ancient vintage in better shape than pretty much any other car Aranea had ever driven. It was raspberry pink, with matching upholstery and tyres, and was simultaneously both the ugliest thing that she’d ever seen on wheels and surprisingly endearing. The man certainly knew how to match colours, if nothing else. Either he’d painted the car to go with his hair, or he’d started dyeing his hair to match the car.

She still wasn’t sure that his hair was real.

It was a clear, warm day in late spring, so she didn’t even have to consider not putting the convertible top down, and messed around with his GPS to get directions. In the passenger seat she had the ordered food, and had pinned in with it the big cardboard container of the huge coffee order that Hammerhead had made. With that as her passenger, Aranea drove out into Insomnia, blaring her music as loud as she wanted with the top down.

It took the better part of an hour and a half to drive through the ridiculous city traffic and into Leide, and then to find Hammerhead. It wasn’t that far beyond the city limits, a bustling little truck stop/gas station/garage combo, crammed full of all sorts of vehicles. Aranea drove up to the main garage and pulled to a stop, fixing her hair from the wind as an older man, his brown hair almost entirely grey, came slowly out of the garage, fixing his baseball cap. “Can we help you?” He growled.

He reminded Aranea a little bit of her grandfather, who had that same kind of gruff scowl. He was probably a huge softie. He was also her height without her heels. He gave her an inscrutable craggy look, and then looked at Ardyn’s car.

“Where’s the grape?” He asked, and Aranea snorted in a moment of uncontrolled ugly laughter. “That’s his car.”

“I’m Aranea Highwind.” She stuck her hand out, and he shook it. He was wearing mechanic’s gloves, and rubbed his nose, looking her over. “I’m the new manager at M.T. Ardyn sent me instead of coming by himself.”

“Yeah, I heard from Reg that he’d hired someone new. Good.” Cid laughed, his skinny arms crossed over his chest. “Caligo was fucking useless. I’m Cid, and I’m guessing you brought my coffee and bagels?”

“Yeah.” He turned and gestured for her to follow.

“Pull his car into the garage, I’ll give it a look over and change the oil.” Aranea moved to get back into the driver’s seat, and pulled in where he gestured her, and then took the food he’d ordered to the side of the room, to the tables laid out. Cid poured himself a cup of coffee and went digging through a tool shelf to find a wrench. “He must really like you,” the man continued, clanging vaguely with one hand. “He won’t let anybody drive that fucking car. He won’t let _me_ drive that car, and I’m the one that modded her.” Aranea, surprised, looked back over at Ardyn’s car.

“Wait...seriously?”

“Yeah.” Cid laughed, shaking his head as he came past her to lift the hood of Ardyn’s convertible, drinking coffee one-handed and banging around with the other, staring at the inner workings of the engine. “He won’t let his boyfriend drive it most of the time. You’ve probably stolen his heart. Anyway,” he set the coffee down on a parts table he pulled over, one wheel rolling wonky and clacking as he dragged it to his side, “I’ll take a bit, check her out. You’re welcome to go into the diner or whatever, I’ll come get you when it’s done.” He’d paid for the food over the phone with a card, so Aranea didn’t really need anything from him, and nodded, her hands shoved into her pockets as she wandered back into the sunlight, her heels clicking on the cement pavement.

Leide was beautiful, all dry scrubland that reminded her of home, cars driving past on the highway out of Insomnia and into Duscae and Cleigne. The sky was wide and blue, and she rubbed her arms. It had been so long since she’d been out of Insomnia that she had forgotten how big the world could be without city streets and skyscrapers and honking car horns and taxis.

“Hey do I smell—oh, whoops!” Aranea stumbled, yelped, as someone bounced directly into her, her ankles wobbling on her heels as she got her balance back, the other person grabbing her elbow.

And Aranea’s brain fell somewhere out the vicinity of her open mouth even as her heart jumped ten feet up into her throat as she looked at the stranger.

The woman was _gorgeous_. All bubbly blonde curls, face still a little soft with baby fat, bright blue eyes, unassuming freckles, a bit of buck teeth and no makeup. She was wearing the same baseball cap as Cid, the same yellow leather jacket with the Hammerhead logo and sponsorship patches, with a pair of jorts, practical and covered in grease stains, a grease rag shoved through one of her belt loops. And—

And.

Boobs.

Whoa, boobs. Some huge boobs. Some. Incredible boobs.

“Um,” Aranea said, staring at the other woman, who looked at her a little worriedly. “Wow,”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Aranea stumbled, her tongue tied. She was On Fire. “I’m. Wow, way more than fine. Um.” The other woman looked at her, and pressed a hand to her forehead. Checking for fever. “Yeah, no, I’m just. You startled me. Thanks.” She smiled, and felt vaguely baffled as the woman grinned at her and pushed past her into the garage.

Aranea stared after her, one hand pressed to her forehead, her mouth half open, and then fumbled her phone out of her pocket.

 

 

[SPIDER]: did you sent me out here because im bisexual

…………...slime man: I don’t know what you mean !…………..slime man

[SPIDER]: I mean the hot girl

[SPIDER]: did you send me out here to meet the hot girl

[SPIDER]: was the sole purpose of this the hot girl

…………..slime man: ;-3c…………..slime man

[SPIDER]: ARDYN!!!

…………..slime man: her name is cindy !…………..slime man

…………..slime man: and I happen to have on good authority that…………..slime man

…………..slime man: she…………..slime man

…………..slime man: is…………..slime man

…………..slime man: single !…………..slime man

[SPIDER]: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

 

Aranea spent the next hour having a crisis of faith of a size unknown by previous dimensions. First: her boss had somehow found out that a hot girl (???) was single. Second: he had apparently set it up so that he would have an excuse to make Aranea go meet her. Third: he was a bad man and apparently really invested in matchmaking.

And the hardest part of all was wow. Cindy was. How was Aranea even supposed to start with that?

Eventually, Cid yelled for her and she came back into the garage, trying to look smart and put together, and found the man pointing something out in Ardyn’s car to Cindy, who nodded along. When she got over, they both straightened, and Cid wiped sweat off of the back of his neck with his grease rag. “She’s fine now. Tell your boss he owes me for an oil change and a tyre rotation.” Aranea nodded. “I’ll write up the bill and he can call it in or mail it out, or whatever.” Cid huffed a sigh. “Cin, I’m gonna have me some more coffee. You write out a receipt for the nice girl.”

“Sure thing, Paw Paw!” He left, and once again, Cindy and Aranea were alone and her tongue, once again, felt like glue. Cindy smiled at her and pulled out a little receipt pad and a golf pencil, and quickly wrote up a bill, which Aranea took. When their fingers touched she felt like she’d been shocked, and she held it, unsure, staring at Cindy.

“Do you...” she began, Cindy cocking an eyebrow at her, “Ever come in to Insomnia?”

“Occasionally.” She put her hands on her hips. “Paw Paw doesn’t like it; says it’s too busy for him. I pick up shipments and such for him. Why d’you ask?”

Aranea opened her mouth, and nothing came out. As she did it, she could hear in her head the voice of one Ardyn Izunia, whispering into her ear, _just fucking do it_. So, she took a deep breath and said:

“Would you wanna go to dinner, sometime? With me? Because you’re cute and, uh, I wanna learn about cars, and I wanna touch your hair and maybe watch a movie, sometime.” Cindy stared at her, blue eyes huge.

“Wow,” she said, at last. “That’s. I don’t even know your _name_.”

“Aranea. Um. Highwind. Aranea is fine, yeah, just Aranea, like, a spider—“

Cindy’s face suddenly lit up. “Like, are we talking a date, or something?” Aranea nodded. “Well. Sure, then, gosh! That’d be loads of fun! Let me give you my number.”

Aranea thought she might expire on the spot.

 

 

When she got back to M.T., she handed Ardyn his bill and then punched him in the arm, hard enough to make him yelp. “What was _that_ for?” He whinged, rubbing the offending bruise, and she thumped him again for good measure.

“You are weird and gay and I hate you.”

“Did you get the date?”

Aranea pointed an accusatory finger at him and waggled it. “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you!”


	2. the gay matchmaking vodka aunt from the black lagoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NYX: theres a dude here  
> NYX: he looks like some1 took a peeler 2 a constipated potato  
> NYX: says hes waiting 4 u  
> NYX: didnt by anything  
> NYX: this legit  
> NYX: or can I kick him out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i bet you werent expecting.....THIS (pulls my pyjama bottoms up to my ass revealing this fanfic)
> 
> in all seriousness i want to actually finish this series and i finally figured out how to do this chapter after struggling with it for months so here we go. i also remembered halfway through writing this that ten years ago was the age of razr flip phones so you can go ahead and imagine adyn with a bubblegum pink one with about a trillion charms on it for the entirety of this fic, because it'd be right. so i tried to recreate the texting to match.
> 
> also this is neither betad nor proofread/edited at any point bc i literally started this at 2pm this afternoon and posted it at 1am so if you see a typo or something lmk pls

The guy walked into M.T., took one glance at the menu, looked at Nyx like Nyx was that kind of gum that every single person on the sidewalk steps on until its blackened and hardened and approximately the same consistency as cement, said, “I’m waiting for your boss,” and sat down at an empty table, got out a newspaper and started to read.

Nyx stared at the guy, and then picked up his phone, flipped it over, and texted Ardyn.

NYX: theres a dude here  
NYX: he looks like some1 took a peeler 2 a constipated potato  
NYX: says hes waiting 4 u  
NYX: didnt by anything  
NYX: this legit  
NYX: or can I kick him out  
GRAPE: oh  
GRAPE: hes early  
GRAPE: omw  
GRAPE: hes legit  
GRAPE: tell him 2 buy something

Nyx snapped his phone shut and slid it into his pocket. “Hey, constipated potato guy.” The man reading the newspaper looked up at him, glaring. “Yeah, you. Boss says to buy something.” His phone vibrated, and he pulled it out, checked his texts.

GRAPE: tell him about things  
GRAPE: coffee things  
GRAPE: <3<3<3

The potato guy stood up, came over, crossed his arms, and stared up at the menu. “I don’t know what any of this shit is,” he said after a moment. “What’s good?”

“It’s _all_ good,” Nyx replied. Ardyn had given him free reign to tell the man about coffee things. That meant he could be a dick, right? “That’s the point of a coffee shop. You come in and you want it all.” He turned around, looked at the menu, and pointed at the plain coffee. “Black coffee is the easiest to make, though, if you want to make my life simple.”

“What’s the hardest thing to make?” Nyx glowered.

“Frappes. They’re full of ice, and milk, and—“

“I’ll take the biggest and most complicated that thing that you can make.” Nyx looked at him. Potato boy grinned at him, tauntingly. The scratches all over his face, most of them still covered in plasters or swollen stitches, stretched jaggedly. “With extra ice, and as much caramel as you can add.”

Nyx grunted.

“Yeah, that’ll be like. 3,000 gil.” Potato guy grunted, shoved a card over the counter, and Nyx rang him up, gave him back his receipt to sign. “I hope this destroys all your teeth and you throw up later.”

“Where does Ardyn find you people,” potato guy said, shaking his head, pocketing his card and receipt copy. “I swear, you all need to go to a sewer.”

 

 

Ardyn swanned in forty minutes later, after Nyx had answered half a dozen more questions about coffee and snacks, all of them equally frustrating and inane. He was wearing a leather biking jacket, clearly not his own because it was too tight over a vividly florescent tangerine silk blouse unbuttoned down to his collarbones, had his hair hastily pinned down with several different, all clashing, pink barrettes, and some old acid-washed jeans and ankle boots. He cheerily greeted the different people in the café, and came over to pinch Nyx’s cheek like an indulgent aunt.

Maybe Ardyn was just the indulgent overdramatic gay aunt that they’d all wished for as a kid and never had.

“You give that fossil hell?” Ardyn asked, and Nyx grinned. Ardyn grinned back. “Good boy, I knew I hired you for a reason.” Potato guy folded up his newspaper, stuck it under his arm, and came over to glare at Ardyn. He mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like _you’re older than me._ “Nyx, this is Titus Drautos.” Ardyn flung an arm around Drautos’ shoulders companionably, and Drautos was visibly uncomfortable with this turn of events. “Titus, this is Nyx, my star barista. He’s a genius. Play nice.”

“His haircut is shit and he has a mouth like a toilet drain.”

“Yeah,” Nyx shot back, “And you sound like a cheap imitation of a cop someone would do at a costume party dressed as a sexy cop.” Ardyn audibly choked. “Fuck off.” Drautos tried to inflate, and Ardyn started laughing.

“He _likes_ you,” Ardyn confided _sotto voce_ to Nyx, cocking one eyebrow at Drautos. “He never acts like a brat unless he likes someone. You should see him and his brother go at it.” Ardyn grabbed Drautos shoulder then, and shoved him off toward the management office. “We’ll get out of your hair now. Have lunch and make Besithia crawl out of whatever hole he’s made in the stockroom and run till while you’re on break!” And then, Ardyn shut the door behind them, cutting off his voice.

Nyx tossed the rest of Drautos’ unfinished frappe, and hoped all his food for the next three days burned.

 

 

Drautos was back the following week. One of the sticking plasters had been taken off of his face, and he came up to order something ridiculous from Nyx. He asked to watch, and Nyx grunted, made the drink while the man watched closely, passed it over to him when it was done. At least it was just a latte, that was easy enough. Drautos stood by the drink-stand and drank it straight and hot, not flinching as he just chugged it.

Nyx could feel his eyelid twitching. He was going to scald his entire mouth until he couldn’t anything for a month, and Nyx hoped he liked it.

“You learn how to do all this here?” Drautos turned to look at Nyx. “Ardyn teach you?”

“No. I worked as a barista for three years before Ardyn hired me.” And they’d all been shitty, awful jobs too. Ardyn paid living wage and had benefits. Nyx was gonna work for the man until he either got made manager and Besithia exploded or Nyx died of overloading his heart with caffeine. Whichever came first. “It’s not exactly hard stuff, doing it really well just takes practice.” Drautos nodded, thoughtfully. Sipped his coffee more.

“He’s lucky he hired you.”

After the workday was over, Nyx dragged his sorry carcass out to get drinks with his loser friends cum drinking buddies, and was already in a pretty foul-ass mood by the time they ordered dinner. Pelna, as per usual attuned to Nyx’s shitty mood, elbowed him in the armpit. “Why you acting like someone pissed in your socks, dude?” Nyx grunted. Crowe slowly pulled down her giant shades, popped her gum. “Food service?”

“Food service,” Nyx agreed. Pelna, Crowe, Libertus, and Luche had all joined the Crownsguard to get out of Galahd. Nyx had joined, too, but been discharged halfway through boot camp because he’d kept trying to fight everything that moved, so, no dice. He’d just gotten a job in Insomnia instead. “There’s a douche who keeps coming in to the café to have weird clandestine meetings with Ardyn in the back office and being a shitheel to me.” He paused, picked up his beer, and swirled it around his mouth, and added, “And he looks like a constipated potato.”

Luche choked on his beer. “A _what_?”

“Constipated potato,” Nyx repeated, gesturing with his bottle. “Big fucking dude, built like a brick shithouse, looks like a constipated potato that someone hacked up with a peeler, not funny, acts like he’s not taken a shit in a year.”

“Please tell me you’re not talking about our boss,” Libertus sounded a little scared. “Like, that sounds like our boss—tell me you’re not talking about Drautos.” Nyx paused, lowered his bottle. “Oh gods, you are.”

“He’s _Crownsguard_?”

“He’s one of the captains,” Libertus confirmed, a little horrified. “Titus Drautos. He’s the Marshal’s older brother. About a month ago, he was escorting the Princess to school and some guy tried to assault her and he got really fucked up. Something like lost a couple pints of blood, puncture a lung, got a bunch of nerves severed, almost lost an eye. He’s having to leave active duty because of it, because he’s part-blind now.” Libertus took a thoughtful sip of his beer. “He’s been talking about going off to do something else, since he ain’t even forty yet, but I didn’t think he was gonna—“

“Be fucking with me at my _job_?” If this was what their captain was like, yeah, Nyx was glad as hell that he had dropped out at boot camp in basic training. He would’ve started fights with this guy and gotten dishonorably discharged. He wanted to pick a fight with the guy, and he didn’t even have to work with him every day. “I’m glad he lived but I’d like him to keep doing it as far away from me as possible.” Nyx scowled. “He said I had a mouth like a toilet drain.”

“He likes you,” Crowe said, the rest of them nodding. “He never acts like that unless he likes someone.”

“Great!” Nyx said, grinning brightly. “Just what I always wanted, to be liked by a guy who acts like he’s never in his entire life had fun!”

 

 

He kept coming. First once a week to meet with Ardyn, his cuts healing, and then more often. Sometimes every day. He started working with Nyx behind the counter, and Nyx got increasingly angry about it. Drautos was in his space, crowding him, bumping him. One day, Drautos offered him a ride home, and Nyx told him in no small words to go fuck himself. After nearly a month of this, one day Ardyn came over as they were closing up, and leaned over onto the wall next to the prep area, smiling. He had lip gloss and false eyelashes on. He had to be going on a date.

“Take the nice boy home for me, will you, Titus?” He fluttered his lashes at Drautos. “Nyx forgot his umbrella.” It was pouring and late and dark, yeah, but—

“No thanks, grapes. I’m good.” Ardyn pouted. He was way too old to pout. Nyx had no idea how old he was, but given he’d seen the man briefly on a day between when he dyed his hair, based on how much grey he had, probably not on the lower end of forty. “Why is this pain in the ass here all the time, anyway?” Nyx narrowed his eyes at Ardyn. “Are you doing Cor favors?”

Ardyn snorted. “I’ve never done anybody a favor in my life, least of all the good Marshal. He can work for it if he wants anything.” Gods, what Nyx wouldn’t give to not know any more about Ardyn’s sex life than he already did. The fact that it existed at all was too much to know. He’d seen Cor shirtless helping do renovations one time, and the fucking stiletto-nail shaped scratches that ran underneath the waistband of his pants—

Gross.

“No, this is genuinely just because I want you to get home safe.” Ardyn’s smile was softer now, and Nyx scowled at him. Gay aunt. Big, gay aunt. Big weird gay aunt. “Put up with him for another twenty minutes, for me?” Nyx narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah, sure.” Ardyn giggled.

“Perfection!”

After they’d closed up, Nyx pulled his hood up over his head and scuffed after Drautos towards his car, away from the dark storefront, the sign over the door swapped to _Closed_ even though Ardyn was still inside, closing up the till. Drautos led the way around the corner and down a block to where he’d parked. He drove an old black car, the fender pretty banged up, a huge scrape up the driver’s side door, and in bad need of some new tires. Inside, it still had hand-cranked windows, a air freshner hanging off of the rearview mirror. Nyx folded up in the passenger seat and put his feet up on the dash like a shitty teenager just to see what Drautos would do, watched him glare vaguely.

As they drove, Nyx giving directions, he watched Drautos’ face. His scarring was going to be pretty bad when this was done, and he could see how the man kept turning his head to the right, how his right eye hung a little loose in the socket. “So,” Nyx said, arms crossed as he watched the streetlights pass over the man’s face, “Why have you been hanging around all the time anyway. Don’t you have better shit to do?”

Drautos grunted. “I’m still on medical leave until the end of this month. I can’t be active duty any more, and frankly I would rather chew my own eyebrows off than have a desk job. I have to find something to do with my time.”

“So, what, you’re gonna come work at Ardyn’s shitty café? You’d terrify all the customers.” Nyx snorted. “You look like you’re going to—“ he’d been about to say _going to knife somebody_ , but cut if off. “You look like you’re gonna start a fight all the time, scars or no. Bad career move, dude. Go be a personal trainer or something.” He paused. “Plus you got injured in the line of duty and you’re being honorably discharged. Don’t you get like. Retirement for life?”

Drautos snorted. “You’ve got better faith in the military industrial complex than I do, kid, and that’s really saying something.” They pulled up to a red light. “I mean, yeah, sure, I’d be able to exist, but do you know how boring that would be?” He rubbed his chin, finger scraping through his stubble. “I’m not even forty yet. I can’t bum around for forty years. I’d lose my mind. When Ardyn had to—“ he seemed to hesitate, changed tack. “When Ardyn got injured and he needed something to do with his time, he opened M.T. and he’s seemed happy enough with it. It keeps him entertained. Which is good, because if it didn’t, I think he might kill someone just for something to do.”

Nyx considered the proposition.

“Yeah, he would.” Nyx stuck his hands behind his head, leaned back against the headrest. “So what, you’re gonna start running a coffeeshop even though you don’t even know what a latte is?”

Drautos glared at him. “I’m considering giving it a shot, yes. Anybody can learn a new skill. I just need to find someone who’s willing to teach me. Ardyn’s been doing his best, but...”

“Ardyn’s the kind of person who’d throw a kid in a lake and tell them to learn to swim.” Drautos laughed, and it was a big deep belly laugh, made his smile wider, pulled on his scars.

“You know,” Drautos said, as they pulled up to Nyx’s apartment block, “He did do that, actually. With his nephew.” Nyx hadn’t known gay aunt supreme had a nephew. Weird. “Chucked him right in the lake. I think his dad nearly bust a gasket.” Nyx opened the car door, slid out, looked back at Drautos, who saluted him. “Have a good night, Barista Ulric.”

Nyx flipped him off, and went home.

 

 

At the end of the month when he was officially off of short-term disability, Drautos vanished back to work at the Citadel, and Nyx breathed a sigh of relief. But it was a little boring, without him. Besithia was fucking weird as a manager (and also, in general, as a human being) and never carried on conversation, and Caligo was just a pain in the ass, but Ardyn didn’t have any other employees, so half the time Nyx got to spend days with one or the other of them. Spending days with Ardyn was hardly better, because he cycled from moody and profound to hyperactive rabbit during heat, and either way, spending more than an hour or two with Ardyn left Nyx with a headache.

He almost started to miss Drautos’ presence. He might have been irascible and had the personality of a bowl of sour milk, but he was quiet, and soaked up the chaos around him, like a great big stone at the middle of a whirlpool.

“Did Drautos ever decide what he’s gonna do?” Nyx asked one afternoon, scrubbing down the counter during a lull while Ardyn refilled the grinders. “After he’s off of active duty?”

“He’s still undecided, last I heard. But he never tells Cor much of anything to pass on. They mostly communicate through a series of manly grunts and flexes, it’s all very macho and testosterone-fuelled.” Ardyn sighed, ostensibly in happiness. Nyx made a face. “But in all seriousness, I don’t think he really has any idea what he wants to do. He and Cor never wanted anything but to join the Crownsguard, and I don’t think he ever planned past that. Given the state things were in what with the wars and all when they both joined up, I don’t think either of them really gave a thought to really properly setting down and retiring.” Ardyn turned back around, came over to dump the old grounds in the trash, shrugged one shoulder just artfully enough to get the strap of his tank-top to slide down over the side of it. “He’ll figure it out, one way or another. I think he’d have a good time in food service. He’s got the right kind of personality to put the fear of the Astrals into annoying customers without having to actually go to effort for it like I do.”

“Yeah,” Nyx shot back, “but he doesn’t know anything about food service or running a coffeeshop. He barely understands what coffee _is_. He’s going to fail.”

Ardyn looked at him, both his perfect eyebrows arched up into his hairline, curls spilling around his face. “What,” he said, looking Nyx dead in the eye, “and you did, when you started? Nyx, you of all people should be able to recognise that skills can be both learned and taught, even to annoying old windbags like Titus. But you’d best be careful, my dear boy, because you’re starting to sound _fond_ of him. That sort of thing can escalate very quickly, you know.” Nyx glared like he could make Ardyn spontaneously go bald out of pure rage. Ardyn smirked. “That’s just telling me how right I am. I’ll tell him you asked about him.”

“I hope you die.”

“You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.”

 

 

On the last day of August, Titus Drautos came into M.T. He was still wearing his Crownsguard fatigues, straight from work, and he was accompanied by the Marshal. Nyx had met Cor numerous times in the three years he’d been working for Ardyn, since knowing Ardyn half the time meant knowing Cor, given they were attached at the hip. But he’d never seen the brothers together, and now he had, he more than saw the resemblance. Same build. Same hair. Same craggy face.

Ardyn arrived to meet them moments later, and waved a hand at Nyx. “Nyx, work your magic and do something truly delightful, it’s on the house. For all four of us, I should think.” Nyx grunted and shoved Loqi, the brand new hire, out of the way as he grabbed to get something started. Ardyn kissed Cor on the cheek and Drautos came over, glowering as he watched whatever Nyx was doing. “Our boy Titus here has officially decided to go into the restaurateur business. I’ll admit, I’m not precisely in love with the idea of competition, but anything to keep him entertained.”

Drautos snorted, “Shut up, Izunia.” Ardyn simpered. “I haven’t even officially started yet, I just got the damn paperwork and found a place to rent.”

“Well, small steps.” Ardyn waved a hand at Loqi, who was staring at Cor, genuinely stunned. Nyx remembered that feeling; it was weird to see a guy who was regularly on the news come in and get velcroed to someone who looked like he’d dressed himself out of a rave but for old people. But they were happy, so whatever. Nyx wasn’t about to stick his foot in that swirling hellhole. “Loqi, go away and bother someone else for a little while, won’t you, dear?” Ardyn waved a hand and Loqi scuttled off to the kitchen to cause chaos somewhere else while Nyx served up the new cold brew black tie he’d been working on for everyone. Ardyn raised it to Drautos, winked.

“To Titus!” He proclaimed. “And hopefully not failing miserably at entrepreneurship!”

“Has anybody ever told you,” Drautos replied, “that you are just about the most annoyingly chipper human being on planet Eos?” Ardyn cackled.

“Well, you know, aggressive optimism is as almost a good a cure for severe mental illness as is a great deal of mood-altering medication!” Ardyn clicked their plastic cups together. “Don’t let it get to you.” Drautos crossed his arms then, and looked toward Nyx.

“You think I’ll be any good at it?” Drautos asked, and while he had the vocal inflection of a clam, Nyx had spent enough time around the man to be able to read it as a genuine question, asking for a genuine answer.

“I think you’re either going to suck ass so hard you’re going to set a new world record for fastest orgasm caused from rimming alone, or you’re going to be frighteningly good at it and put me out of a job when you drive away all our business.” Cor choked hard at the first answer, and started hacking his coffee back into his cup, his face bright red, as Ardyn and Drautos both calmly pounded him on the back until he was breathing again. “Seriously. All you need is a competent manager to take care of the food and you can probably build an empire entirely out of nothing but sheer determination and grit.”

“He _likes_ you,” Ardyn confided _sotto voce_ to Drautos, cocking one eyebrow at Nyx. “He never takes things seriously unless he likes someone.” Nyx flushed, angry. “See? Told you.” Ardyn leaned on the counter then, his hip cocked, and thoughtfully pressed to fingers to his chin. “I wonder...”

Cor looked vaguely worried. “You and that expression is a bad idea,” the Marshal said. “Whatever you have in mind, don’t do it.” Ardyn waved a hand at him, ignoring his boyfriend with the ease of long practice.

“Too late, Marshal. Nyx, you know lots of things about coffee.”

“Yeah,” Nyx replied. “I _work for you._ You know this. You hired me.” Ardyn looked to Drautos, and, in the same manner that one would reveal the ultimate prize on a game show, pointed to Nyx.

“There you heard it, Captain, right from the chocobo’s mouth. I do believe that here you have your manager. He comes with a great recommendation, so I’ve heard, from a fairly reputable source. He’ll want benefits and a raise, I’m certain. That’s your competent foodservice staff solved, and a better position for this fantastic young man.”

“What,” Nyx said, at the exact same time that Drautos said, “The hell?” They looked at each other, briefly, and then back at Ardyn. Cor, wisely, attempted to withdraw from the line of fire, disengaging from where Ardyn was trying to wrap around him like an octopus to ostensibly visit the restroom, while Ardyn walked facefirst into hell like always.

“Did you just _fire me_?” Nyx spluttered.

“I’m not hiring your college dropout caffeine junky,” Drautos added, spitefully enough that Nyx considered stepping on his foot. “Don’t you need the staff, anyway? This place barely functions as-is.”

“I didn’t fire you, I just promoted you to a different job. And no, we’re not short-staffed. I need to bring a few more people onto the team anyway, but you need staff more than me right now.” Ardyn shrugged. “I leave it to you two to work out, I just gave you the idea, after all. But think about it, won’t you?” He drained the rest of his cup and threw it into a perfect hole-in-one basket in the bin behind the counter. “I think you two could be a real dream team, if you stopped bickering like an old married couple and just sucked each others’ dicks or wrote a menu together.”

The silence was deafening. Nyx felt like his jaw was about to hit the floor. Ardyn giggled, winked, and comically pressed both his hands over his open, grinning mouth.

“Oh no!” Ardyn said, his voice an octave higher than usual in faux-horror. “Whatever have I done, did I say that out loud? Shame on me, how foolish and short-sighted. I suppose I shall just have to own that forever. Unfortunate indeed!”

Nyx continued to stare at his boss, a flush rising up the back of his neck, heating up into his hairline, as his eyeballs threatened to roll out of their sockets. So, amendment to his previous categorisation of Ardyn as the gay vodka aunt that everyone should have: he was a gay _matchmaking_ vodka aunt without a hair of self-preservation on his entire dyed head.

And the worst part was, Nyx totally did want to suck his dick, and also be his restaurant manager. So the damn matchmaking vodka aunt shtick had worked. Fucker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr and twitter @jonphaedrus

**Author's Note:**

> twitter and tumblr @jonphaedrus


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